


Get Goro a Dad 2k20

by 3musketears



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Fluff, Happy Ending, It's not dark at all I swear, M/M, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, goro cries a lot, no beta we die like me in Okumura palace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24845806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3musketears/pseuds/3musketears
Summary: Inspired bythis wonderful drawingAkechi Goro was sixteen the first time he visited Jazz Jin in Kichijoji. At this point, he had been taken in by fourteen foster families. None of them kept him for longer than a month.Akechi Goro was turning nineteen when he got a father for the first time.In which the owner of the jazz club adopts our boy because I said so. Happy Father's Day!
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 20
Kudos: 284
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	Get Goro a Dad 2k20

**Author's Note:**

> Ngl I wrote this in a span of three hours so it hasn't been proofread and it's probably a mess. Enjoy regardless!

Akechi Goro was sixteen the first time he visited Jazz Jin in Kichijoji. At this point, he had been taken in by fourteen foster families. None of them kept him for longer than a month. 

He found himself curled up in a ball on the sticky floor of the men’s bathroom in the subway. When he was nine, he learned how to make his sobs silent. The other boys in the institution would really give him something to cry about if he kept them up at night. Goro thought about how great it would be if they kicked open the stall right now and beat him until he couldn’t remember why he kept seeing red when he looked down at his shaking hands.

The thought of returning to his apartment feeling how he did made acid flow up from the empty pit of his stomach and fill his lungs. It hurt like a bitch, he doubted he could keep down any food. Or that he had the money for food.

Goro wasn’t sure how he wound up inside the club. He left the bathroom in a dissociative state, a phantom drifting among a see of whole people. It was a miracle he hadn’t fallen down the brick stairs and snapped his neck. Or maybe it was a curse, the miracle would’ve been putting him out of his misery. 

A mournful jazz tune played softly over a speaker, its melody washing over the chatter of the voices around him and the ones inside Goro’s head. He didn’t have a radio in his apartment, but he remembered the tiny unit his mom would turn on in the rare occasion where she was in a good mood. She’d scoop him up in her arms and sway him around, trying to sing along with a language she didn’t speak. When they danced around the small apartment like that, he could see it in her face, all her troubles took the backseat for just a moment. It was only the two of them existing in this bubble of sound, unaffected by the cruelty of their circumstances.

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, simply reveling in the rhythm and chords. Goro didn’t see anyone approach him, he didn’t notice at all until someone tapped his shoulder and he sharply recoiled.

“Woah, hey kid. I’m not going to do anything to you,” the older man in the fedora said, holding up his hands as if soothing a frightened animal. Goro let himself relax just slightly, feeling less like he’d been caught in the headlights. The man’s face softened. “It’s getting late. Are your parents nearby? You’ve been here quite some time, they must be worried sick.”

When Goro was five, he was mature enough to realize that all the other kids at school had fathers. He asked his mother where his was. She said he need not worry about it. Weeks went by with no answers. In class, the teacher asked all the children to share what their mommies and daddies did for work. Goro asked his mom again. She told him to leave it be. 

Her resistance sowed the seeds of an obsession, one that’s roots later became the veins in his hands as they wielded a loaded gun. Every week he tried to get information out of his mother, every time she told him to go to bed or turned on cartoons to placate him. Featherman did nothing to quell his curiosity, especially as one of the characters grappled with the revelation that his presumed-dead father might be alive. 

To his mother’s credit, it took her three whole months of dealing with his bothersome pestering before she snapped and told him his father was a rotten son of a bitch who damned her for life with his fucking sperm. That was the first time Goro realized his existence was making her unhappy. Maybe if he was gone, then things would get better, his young blood spilled to save her livelihood. 

That was also the first time he thought about killing his father.

Goro gave the stranger his most disarming smile, the one he perfected over the years in a futile attempt to make someone love him. Now he used it to stop people from trying. “Oh, don’t worry about me! There’s no one waiting for me at home.”

Akechi Goro was eighteen when he brought someone else into his bubble for the first time. Kurusu Akira was an enigma, a deceptively quiet boy with the fire of a thousand hells burning behind his unassuming demeanor. They were the same in that way, beneath each of Goro’s palatable grins was another Ragnarok, destructive rage that proved unbelievably cathartic until he was left with nothingness. A blank void.

Kurusu was a great listener. Goro liked being listened to for once. When he did speak, it always took Goro aback how insightful he was. He had an equal. A rival.

As they parted ways, the club owner- who he now knew as Muhen- came up behind him and patted him on the back. “You made a friend,” Muhen said, “I’m proud of you.”

Goro was quick to insist that Kurusu was his rival and not his friend, but he bit his tongue. Shido told him he did well when he wiped out targets as asked on occasion, Sae-san had responded similarly when he offered a hypothesis she approved of. But neither ever said they were proud of him. “I guess I did,” Goro replied. He hated how much his voice rose as he said it. After Muhen turned back into the cafe, Goro started walking home.

Goro’s skin tingled for hours afterward where his hand had been. 

Akechi Goro was turning nineteen when he got a father for the first time. Kurusu- no, _Akira_ insisted on taking him out to their special place to celebrate. The idea of celebrating his birth seemed completely absurd in Goro’s honest opinion, but he couldn’t refuse when Akira took his hand and whisked him through the shopping district with a big goofy smile on his face. He’d learned he had trouble turning Akira down, but also that Akira’s ideas were usually in his best interest.

Akira pushed open the door, holding it open for Goro with a grand gesture. Following the line of his arm, Goro spotted the table adorned in colorful streams and confetti in the center of the room. The bright colors clashed horribly with the low-light atmosphere. Goro loved it. He must have stood there gawking at it for some time because Akira nudged him with his foot and cleared his throat. “After you, my prince.”

“You’re so corny,” Goro said. Muhen nodded at him as he passed by the counter and Goro let himself smile a bit. They took their seats and Goro noticed that the music sounded different. He turned around and saw the vocalist standing on the stage, oozing confidence as she eased through a familiar tune. “I didn’t think the live music was scheduled for tonight.”

“It wasn’t,” Akira replied. He reached across the table to steal Goro’s drink and take a sip.

“Hey!” Goro squawked at him like a bratty child watching his toy get stolen, “That’s my drink! You have your own.” Further examination showed that Akira did not in fact have his own. “Oh.”

“I guess you better make me one before I drink all of yours,” Akira teased because he was a little shit. A beautiful little shit, but a little shit nonetheless.

Somehow Goro ended up behind the bar being instructed by Muhen on how to mix a few different non-alcoholic beverages. None of them involved any cooking, which was a great relief. Goro would feel even more like a worthless dangerous little bastard if he set his safe space on fire. “I think I understand the basics,” Goro said, “but how do you make that multicolor one?”

Muhen laughed good-naturedly. “I’m glad you’re so interested. But let’s see if you can actually make a drink before we start doing any of the advanced stuff.”

Goro felt a surge of determination looking at the ingredient and the empty glass before him. A smile- his real, crooked smile that one foster parent said made him look deranged- tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You’ll find I pick up on things pretty quickly.”

“Do you now?” Muhen replied, though it didn’t sound condescending, “Alright then, show me what you’ve got.”

A war went on between Goro’s great memory and his ineptitude with food. He could recite the steps forwards and backwards easily on command but had trouble with the actual mixing. Goro waited to be called out for his earlier cockiness, but the jeering never came. Muhen stood behind him and guided his gloved hands as he carefully poured just the right amount of bright purple liquid into the little glass. He couldn’t help but think of the older Sakura occasionally peering over Akira’s shoulder in Leblanc.

Goro returned to the table with his concoction and placed it in front of his boyfriend. “Don’t bullshit me if it sucks,” Goro warned before plopping into his own seat. Akira had mercifully left approximately two-thirds of his drink untouched. Goro caught the straw between his fingers and sipped a bit himself.

With much thought, Akira took a slow deliberate drink. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Subconsciously, Goro scooted to the edge of his seat and leaned forward. “So? Is it bad?”

Akira shook his head. “Maybe a bit sweet for my taste, but it’s good! I bet if you practiced you could serve all of us sometime.”

The little attention whore in Goro gobbled all of that up like a pig. He tried not to let it show how much it affected him, even though Akira undoubtedly could see into his head at this point. “I’m not so sure about that.” Then he added, slightly softer, “But thank you.”

“Don’t worry, Akechi-kun.” Goro jumped at the sudden voice next to him, but relaxed when he realized it was just Muhen. “You’ll have plenty of chances to get better.” He held out a sheet of paper. Goro took it and felt his eyes watering up.

Fourteen times he’d been given a certificate like this one. All fourteen times he ended up back in an institution soaking it with his tears. Every time he watched the ink characters of his name- each time with better penmanship- bleed until they were barely recognizable as such. If there had been a paper shredder, he would’ve used it. He learned to rip them into tiny pieces before throwing them out after some other children found a full one and used it to torment him once.

“I know you’ll only be a minor for one more year, but a year’s a long time to be alone,” Muhen said when Goro didn’t respond for a while. 

“I’m not sure I understand,” Goro croaked. He likely understood more than most, but he buried his hope in the same grave with his dead mother after realizing all it ever did was hurt him.

Muhen explained, “Your boyfriend here was planning out your whole surprise party and he mentioned that he didn’t think you’d ever had one before. It got me thinking. I’ve got two little girls at home, sweetest kids ever. I’d never leave either of them for anything. I remembered something on tv mentioning you’re an orphan. They framed it as some remarkable fact relative to your success, but I’ve seen you moping in here. As a father, I just thought it was a shame.” He sighed heavily, “My place has an extra bedroom we aren’t using, and I’m sure my girls wouldn’t mind having a big brother.”

 _A big brother_. Goro repeated the words over and over again until they didn’t sound remotely like real words anymore. He recalled his first visit to Leblanc, the younger Sakura clinging to Akira as he compulsively spilled a bunch of highly personal information about his upbringing for no reason. Their tangible closeness made him feel like a piece of shit, the notion only worsened by how horribly jealous it made him. He couldn’t look at others being happy without wondering what made them so special. What did they have that he never would. 

“I-I really don’t-” Goro couldn’t finish the sentence without sobbing. Not his usual quiet misery; these sobs were loud, messy, and wrecked his whole body. Akira was out of the chair and at his side in an instant, rubbing easy circles into his back and handing him a napkin. Goro took it and tried to dry his eyes but to no avail. He shook his head. “That’s very kind of you, but I really don’t think you understand. You d-don’t _want_ me. No one does. My own relatives shuffled me around until they all got sick of having to deal with me. There’s something very _very_ wrong with me and I don’t think I can ask someone to tolerate me for a whole year.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Muhen asked. “Akechi-kun, I doubt you remember it, but the first time you came here you stumbled down the stairs and walked right past me without paying. I couldn’t even be mad though, because you scared the life out of me. And how long have you been coming here now? Two or three years? You just came in looking sadder and sadder each time I saw you. By the time you left you usually looked a little better, but it was just terrible to watch.” He put his hand on Goro’s shoulder. “I’m adopting you.”

Were he to refuse, Goro would return to his apartment, flop onto his bed, and stay up for the duration of the night plagued with maybes and what-ifs. He spent weeks like that as a child, wondering what he could’ve done to make his mother stay or how life would’ve been if he’d grown up with a father. As he got older, more and more of these hypotheticals ended with his death, particularly as he started forming his half-boiled revenge scheme. Lately, they’d involved Akira and the possibility that if their paths crossed earlier then Akira could have saved him. He always got so caught up in the past, it followed him like a shadow dragged along by his feet, it tangled him in a web tight enough to cut his circulation off.

Over his ragged breathing, Goro heard the live singer crooning a familiar song. The tone was wistful, an upright bass accompanying the electric piano chords. Goro was never one to place his faith in signs from above or divine intervention, but this was just too perfect. He knew the title of the tune ringing in his ears. No more what-ifs.

“Alright. Why the hell not.”

**Author's Note:**

> Muhen's daughters are probably like "dad why is big bro crying all the time" but it's just because he's never had a family before and he's so happy :)
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos make my day. And be sure to support the artist who gave me the idea, link in the summary


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